Not long now till the Retreat at Eggesford Barton House - though friend Mon pointed out that it might be a 'freezer' rather than Spring 'fever'. I'm hoping the house will be lovely and warm with its woodburning stoves etc. 17 of us will arrive on Friday bringing a pot luck supper. Then Saturday should start bright and early with a continental style breakfast and a bit of a stroll (7 mile circuit?) around the Eggesford Estate. The day is free to spin/knit/weave/crochet/experiment with dyeing or whatever. Saturday lunch will be smorgasbord style. Saturday supper will be in the capable hands of Devonchef Tim Harris. More spinning, knitting, crocheting, solving problems of the world, after supper, Sunday involves piling into as few cars as possible (whilst leaving room for stash of course) and heading off for Lynton and the Natural Dye Studio. Queenie Amanda promises us a dyeing demo and we get to drool over her luscious natural dyed yarns. After this we'll head on over the the Blue Ball Inn for lunch before moving on to John and (Juliet) Arbon's shop in Lynton itself. Lynton is a gorgeous sea side Devon village in North Devon and worth wondering around anyway. After what should prove to be a full and inspiring day we head on back to Eggesford House for a last supper as we all have to depart on Monday morning by 10am. I'm not doing any more organising now until I get back from Scotland after next weekend. Then the days before will be a flurry of food shopping and cooking and baking. I'm so looking forward to this holiday!

April is looking very busy for other reasons too - Wonderwool is taking place in the Royal Welsh Showground at the end of the month and I'm organising the coach for the fourth time. You'd think I'd be able to do it in my sleep now! The coach is full - although there's been a few drop outs there's also a little bit of a waiting list so that's great. I only hope the weather will be better than last year - it couldn't get much worse!I'm also hoping to make a whacky hat for the competition too - but time is running out as usual. There's also two workshops to plan for and try and publicise - the Introductory course at Coombe House and the Fairisle day at Ipplepen.

So welcome to my new blog - which will concentrate on my efforts at making a go of being a textile artist. My old blog is still out there in blogland (knitknackpaddywack.blogspot) and will continue to gather up the detritus sporadically I'm sure.